


He's Got It Bad and That Ain't Good

by tea_petty



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Addiction, Drug Addiction, Drugs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21566737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_petty/pseuds/tea_petty
Summary: The other gang leaders turn Gage onto the Overboss' bad habit.
Relationships: Porter Gage/Sole Survivor
Kudos: 24





	He's Got It Bad and That Ain't Good

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr; tea-petty, for user @juulianisgay featuring their Sole Survivor, Julian.

Porter Gage wasn’t a man who scared easy. In most cases, he didn’t scare at all, but now he was in a small drawing room, outnumbered four to one by some of the meanest sons of bitches (and in Nisha’s and Mags’ case, bitches) Gage had ever had the _dis_ pleasure of working with. He wouldn’t call himself scared – at least not yet, he figured, watching the way William Black turned a switchblade dangerously between sinewy fingers – a clammy sweat had wormed through his unease and started to mist the sliver of space between the small of his back and his grubby shirt.

“Gage, do you know why we’ve convened today?”

Mags’ eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark gunk. It made her look a little raccoony. That is, if a raccoon had ever relished the thought of Gage dying a particularly grisly death.

“I have a feelin’ yer about to tell me.”

From the far right of where the gang leaders had gathered, William let out a short, quiet laugh – a strange mix between a bark and a hiss. 

“Hm,” Mags studied him, one manicured eyebrow cocked. She looked a bit like the girls in the spank mags he used to hoard as a snot-nosed kid. He’d sooner stick his cock in the gauntlet than jerk off to the woman standing before him now though. 

“Your boy’s got a problem,” Mason pushed off from the old rusted desk he’d been leaning up against. The large man displaced it a few inches with the casual movement, and it scraped against the concrete floor. “And when he’s the Overboss, that means we’ve _all_ got a problem.”

At the mention of Julian, Gage’s heart seized at the flat of his breastbone, thrashing like a mad man against cage bars. Gage grinned a mottled, tooth-and-gum grin.

“Gee,” he said scratching the back of his head, “Colter had a problem, and now Julian? I’m startin’ to think there’s just no pleasing you.”

At the mention of the late ex-Overboss the gang leaders shifted and when the moment passed, they all looked somewhat like they were poised to lunge. Gage swallowed and was hyperaware of how his throat bobbed as he did, like a juicy, red apple awaiting the skewering arrow from atop the fool’s head. Colter was still a sore subject, he guessed.

“This is serious Gage. Julian’s been doing good work around the parks – he’s been better than Colter already,” Nisha continued.

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is we’re afraid that he’s still a bit of an unknown quantity what with…” Nisha’s voice lowered as she searched for the right words.

The scraping of more furniture legs against concrete and all eyes were dragged to William’s corner of the room. William flicked his blade into a closed position with a resounding snap.

“It’s the shit he’s putting in him. Don’t get me wrong – what he does in his free time is his own business, and frankly, I couldn’t care less if he wants to string poison through his veins, but the truth of the matter is that the stuff takes a toll on the mind too.” William raised one hand to tap at his temple, “and that means a monetary risk that frankly, we could all do without taking.”

“For once, we agree on something,” Nisha affirmed.

Gage felt something drop in him; a frigid drop of water, a stone better left unturned – whatever it was disturbed the quiet in him and sent ripples of alarm to every part of him. The raider fought to keep his face still, and the end result was a barely perceptible deepening of crow tracks at the corners of his eyes.

Gage snorted to cover it up.

“Now is when you all want to act all ‘holier than thou’ about habits?” Gage jerked his chin at Mason, “when’s the last time you and your mangy dogs _bathed_?”

Mason’s lip curled up and he leaned forward.

“Hey Porter – we can do this right now, no problem. Take care of that nasty habit of _existin’_ , you’ve got goin’ on.”

Gage’s hand twitched as he felt himself bristle.

“Behave boys.” Mags sounded bored. She turned to the man in the caged, yellow armor. “Mind Julian. He is another one of your _brilliant_ hiring choices, after all.”

-

The walk back to the Fizztop Grille was cold seeing as winter had just begun to fall upon the Commonwealth. Gage barely felt it though, every step feeling like a shove away from the insinuations the gang leaders made. He pushed through the thoughts, like a steel ship through dark, treacherous waters but by the time he stood right below the Fizztop Grille, looking up at the lit windows at the top; an array of warm orange where Julian was no doubt settling down for the day, Gage couldn’t help but wonder if he were to barge in to the main room, what exactly he’d find. 

A tourniquet and syringe? Musty cannisters of jet?

 _No, you wouldn’t_ , a small voice in his head argued. Perhaps the closest thing he had to a conscience – and it had only made an appearance since Julian came into his life. _You wouldn’t because you know he’s not like that._

 _Then there’s no reason not to_ , Gage felt his mind make itself up, and he slunk up the winding stairs like a skulking cat. The balls of his feet were silent against the concrete beneath, and he moved deliberately to avoid the clank and creak of the metal on his person. When he reached the chipping, blue, double doors at the top, Gage felt himself pause. He took a deep breath – trying to take in strength, he thought, or else conjure that of which was not for him to steal. Instead, it only gave ample opportunity for a cold sweat to spring at his skin, and his heart slouch into a runner’s mark – ready to race.

Then he abruptly shoved the doors open, letting them fall ajar so that the small, brass knobs announced his arrival. From over at the home bar, Julian’s head snapped up from where he slouched over his drink, the grubby crystal nestled tenderly between his large palms. 

“What the hell?”

Gage ignored Julian’s flared response – undoubtedly due to the jolting entrance he’d just made – as his eyes searched the counterspace besides Julian. It was bare, with nothing that could even resemble a chem, in sight.

“I’m home.”

Julian made a face.

“Yeah, I know. And I’m sure the rest of NukaWorld knows too considering how much of a racket you made on your way in.”

Actually, the rest of NukaWorld knew because they’re the ones that had summoned him in the first place, but of course, Gage didn’t say any of that.

“How were things by the way?”

“Huh?”

Gage had been kicking his boots off and maneuvering his way out of his armor for the night when Julian’s question caught him mid-step.

“The scuffle Mason and Nisha called you about – the one with two of their own nearly ripping each other to shreds?”

Gage let out a long, quiet stream of breath, and by the time he finished it, his body felt heavier than the gnarled metal he’d just shucked off.

‘Right. That. It’s settled.”

“Good,” Julian said, taking a sip of his drink. 

The liquid inside was a warm brown – whiskey maybe. Despite its kick, Julian didn’t falter in the slightest. “I don’t understand why they couldn’t have just worked it out themselves though.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Oh well,” Julian set his drink down and slid from his stool. “The important thing now is that you’re home.” When he came to Gage, the latter’s arms opened like flower buds reaching towards the sun. It was an instinct, one born of a need to live, and such a comparison didn’t feel like a stretch for Gage. Julian pressed a rasped kiss to Gage’s mouth.

“Why don’t you go and get yourself a drink? I’ll be right back.”

Then he slipped from Gage’s arms as he had from the stool and was walking away.

“Where are you going?”

Gage started towards the bar to try and make his comment seem more innocuous.

Julian threw a crude grin over his shoulder as he stepped into the small, private bathroom off to the left.

“Gotta go ‘drop off the kids.’”

With the sound of the door latching shut, Gage was alone with an opportunity he wished he was too dumb to notice. The door hadn’t been locked – Gage had heard no secondary click. Unless, it was merely that; that Gage had not _heard_ the door lock.

Before Gage could even find agreement in his own head that it was a good idea, he had slid off his bar stool, and was creeping over to the bathroom door. Unlike his ascent up the concrete stairs, the careful pressure on the balls of his feet were well-placed and paid off in the avoidance of a confrontation Gage had decided not to consider until it was literally staring him in the face.

Warm light leaked out from beneath the door but even when Gage cupped a hand around his ear and pressed it against the door, he could hear nothing. The water wasn’t running, and if Julian truly was ‘dropping off the kids’, it must’ve been an arduous process, seeing as he couldn’t even hear the sound of waste hitting the water in the toilet bowl. 

Julian was constipated, that must’ve been it. 

Gage believed that. Could believe that. Desperately found himself wanting to believe it, anyways, though he never rose from his position at the door.

That very same door swung open a few moments later and then Julian was looming over Gage, his face confused as to why the other man could’ve been listening in on him in the bathroom.

“Uh…”

Realizing his hand was still at the door, Gage rose to a standing position. He brushed his hands over his grubby clothes, though he wasn’t quite sure why. 

“I caught you red handed it seems,” Julian remarked, raising his eyebrow at Gage’s uncharacteristic fidget. 

“I can explain.”

Gage actually wasn’t sure he could.

“No need,” Julian raised his hands in a ‘let-it-be’ gesture. “I understand perfectly.”

Gage’s heart rattled inside him, and he thought he might’ve been thrown by the vicious impact of its beats, had the heaviness in his limbs not bolted him in place.

“I understand,” Julian continued, “that you’re some kind of _pervert_.”

He flashed a wide grin, rendered impish by the shock of red hair, and eerie stitching curving in a secondary grimace at his throat.

“Well, _shit_ ,” Gage said, needing the out, but not really wanting to own the accusation either.

“Yeah, ‘shit’, no kiddin’.”

-

The next morning, Gage had just enough time to regret cutting through the Operator’s side of town before William had him pulled into a grimy little alley between the Parlor and some sorry standing shack that looked like it might fold at any second.

“So, does the Overboss have… _an understanding_ with all of us now?”

“Yeah, sure.”

William studied him for a moment before letting out an unamused snort.

“You still don’t fuckin’ believe us, do you?”

Gage considered this carefully. He didn’t _want_ to believe them, but he couldn’t deny how he’d prowled outside Julian’s closed doors, straining his ears for the sound of needle piercing skin, or worse yet, his deadweight hitting the floor.

“Listen, you put me in a real bad position by-“

“And _you_ put us in a ‘real bad’ position with Colter,” William cut him off. “If Julian winds up being a dud too, then you’ll be in a _really dead_ position. Got it?”

The threat itself didn’t scare Gage as much as the chances of William being right about Julian. It was then that Gage could pinpoint the restlessness that stirred him; the near compulsive need to find evidence, despite him really not wanting to find anything at all.

William left him to mull this paradox over in the alley by himself until the sun had risen to its apex in the sky, and Gage found, with renewed dread, that it was time to meet Julian to pick up the park hauls.

Gage found the Overboss by the large, bronze rocket statues marking the entrance to the Galactic Zone. Julian always started with the Galactic Zone and moved in the order of the arc shape the zones had formed. Surely that was a sign of sobriety? Order? Most of the junkies Gage had known (and in being a raider, he had known a lot) had been the epitome of the exact opposite; disorder, harbingers of chaos, the storm raging around the calm eye.

Julian flashed his right hand a grin as the man jogged up to him, mouth in its countering, jutting frown.

“Took you long enough. What, you have something more important to do?”

“Sorry boss.”

Gage really, _really_ hoped he didn’t.

“It doesn’t matter,” Julian said, studying Gage. “We’ve got some sweet prizes to claim, and that’s all that matters.”

He started off deeper into the park, where the silhouettes of rusting rockets and crumbling cat walks hung in the air like oblique monsters in the distance, shifting restlessly in the fog.

Through Julian’s cheerful disposition, Gage felt his own grow heavier, like the muscles in his face were turning to stone. He sounded a bit too happy – or maybe that was just William’s own venomous accusations working their way through Gage’s blood stream, infiltrating his body chemistry until the very thing that seemed most natural to him – trusting Julian, and though he’d never say it aloud, _loving_ Julian – seemed alien to his body.

“Yeah.”

Gage halted just a few inches short of face planting into Julian’s back before the larger man turned on his heel, arms crossed.

“Unless you’ve got something you want to say?”

He did, starting with how the gang leaders had jumped him and ending with the sorry sight of him crouched outside the bathroom door the previous night. When Gage’s mouth fell open though, the words stopped just short of being spoken into existence.

“You must – you’ve been dancing around me since last night when I caught you outside the bathroom door,” Julian snapped, “so out with it. What, you don’t like what I’ve been doing and think you can do it better? Or were you going to skip that chat and go straight for the knife in my back? I know how you _loathe_ words.”

Gage felt the sting of Julian’s remark as sharply as if it was his own body that had felt the bite of a knife. He had learned young to deflect whatever emotions that followed. Better anyone else than him, is what he always said. Of course, that was before he’d met Julian, though old habits died hard.

“You know what? I was tryin’ to protect you but fuck it. Yeah, let’s have it out now.”

The two men stared each other down, jaws clenched tight, gazes steely and wielded like drawn weapons.

“Are you a junkie?”

Julian laughed, but it was so harsh sounding that it barely resembled a laugh at all.

“I’m fuckin’ serious man,”

Gage’s chest was tight with his anger, wrapped around him like barbed wire. He couldn’t move or speak or even breathe without feeling the barbs. As his cheeks burned deliriously, the barbs pricked him further and the pain made him _so fucking mad_. 

“Then _be_ fucking serious, you sound like you’re the one on something.”

This blow struck especially hard; Gage thought he’d read somewhere in the tattered pages of some old book, about all the types of crazy someone could be, how defensiveness that threw back accusations at the accuser was usually a sign that the accused was rightfully so. He’d run with enough guilty folks himself to recognize someone poorly hiding their tracks anyhow.

“Prove it.”

Without thinking, Gage lunged forward, thick fingers wrapped tightly around Julian’s forearm. Julian stiffened under his right-hand’s touch. In the heavy silence that fell over them, the pads of Gage’s fingers felt deafly for puncture marks – as if they’d leap out at him like brilliant, red flags.

All traces of his earlier smile had vanished from Julian’s face now as he scowled at Gage. He wrenched his arm out of Gage’s grasp, and while he’d felt no puncture marks, he’d felt the staggering loss of Julian from his hold and hated the cliché of the man literally sliding through his fingers.

“I don’t have to prove _anything_ to you,” Julian hissed, “I’m the fucking Overboss.”

Julian whirled around, stalking off towards the yellow steamer trunk that could just be made out from its distance. Gage knew better than to follow right then and there, though watching Julian draw farther and farther away somehow felt like letting him go. The hurt that came next was a two-blow sort; once for the pangs of anxiety that stirred once more since Colter had been taken care of, and another that near knocked the wind out of Gage at the thought of sleeping alone that night.

Gage jogged up to meet Julian again after seeing him crouch to empty the trunk; it was a two-person job for a reason. 

If Julian was surprised to see Gage had followed him after all, he never showed it, just wordlessly passed the contents of the trunk to him with assembly-line efficiency. A few pieces of leather armor, and some pipe guns later, Julian still had not addressed Gage directly.

“Good amount of caps this time,” Gage remarked, eyeing the generous pile that had accumulated at the bottom of the trunk.

“Yeah, the Galactic Zone is doing well.” Julian closed the trunk with a snap. “I’ll leave this to the Operators.”

“ _All_ of it?”

Julian turned to face Gage again with the same stony demeanor, daring him to question his decision.

“Not that it’s any of your business – but everyone’s in this for the caps, and Colter had the gangs stagnating for a while, so yeah, this time, they get to keep the whole thing.”

“That’s erhm…mighty _generous_ of you boss, but –“

“Generosity has nothing to do with it, it’s just how business works.” Julian cut him off. “The CEO is the last to get a paycheck when starting a new business, you know.”

“The CE-what?”

“Never mind.”

The hike to Dry Rock Gulch was quiet and teeming with the things left undiscussed. Every few steps, when Gage felt the crunch of gravel underfoot might be loud enough, he’d hazard a glance towards Julian, who was always a few paces ahead. When his own eyes resumed on the path in front of them, sometimes his skin would itch and he’d think maybe Julian was watching him too, but he was always too afraid to check.

By the time they were leaving footprints in the red sand, puffed and pillowed from the buildup of loose sediment on top, Julian’s mood had recovered a little. He allowed Gage to walk beside him now, and when he popped the hood of the steamer trunk here, his face split into a wide grin.

He whistled.

“If we keep going like this, we _will_ be able to sit on our asses like Colter had – only on a giant pile of caps.”

A few caps slid from the top of the pile that threatened to burst from the receptacle, as if to prove Julian’s point.

“Blood money,” Gage picked one up as if his eyes were trained enough to pick up on any specks of blood that might’ve lingered there. “Killin’ and making a killin’ go hand in hand. Slit their throat and take their shit. A typical Disciple, two-step program. Makes almost as much caps as-“

Julian’s and Gage’s eyes met, and the heat in the exchange almost made the latter flinch away.

“As what? Chem money?”

Gage tossed the cap back onto the pile, where miraculously, it stayed. 

“Yeah, exactly.”

Julian shut the lid, pocketing the fusion cores that peeked out from behind the corner of the trunk. The Disciples could keep their caps, and Julian would keep his power.

The fact that Julian had yet to take any caps had to be good – right? No money to buy chems, no chems to do…

Of course, Gage imagined that the manufacturers in NukaWorld would be only too happy to supply their Overboss in exchange for his lax taxation policy on loot hauls.

“Hey Boss,” Gage started as they made their way across the barren lots separating the parks, in the direction of the Safari Zone.

Julian’s chin lifted with his eyes, challenging Gage.

Gage kept his gaze sweeping the area around them.

Here, the wasteland really did look like the wasteland, with debris that jutted out from the cracked ground like broken teeth, unlike the settlements cropping up in the Commonwealth, which were almost picturesque in a folksy sort of way, or the parks themselves, which looked like massive, dangerous club houses.

“When exactly are you going to start collecting caps yourself?”

“I’m letting the gangs keep their hauls this time – an olive branch after Colter, and an opportunity for them to use the funds to get them out of the rut he dug for them. From every haul after this, I’ll take ten percent.”

“That’s it?”

Julian came to a halt so sudden; Gage realized his boss was no longer beside him a few steps too late and had to backtrack to face him. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, barely keeping his flared temper in. If Julian had been a fur and claws animal right then and there, he’d be baring his teeth, haunches bristling.

“Ten percent from five parks is plenty for one man. Not to mention, I’ve been talking to Shank about expanding into the Commonwealth – where I’ll take a cut from as well.”

“Sure Boss.”

Gage’s reply was slippery and hit Julian like gasoline. When Gage turned in the direction of the Safari Zone once more, something strong jerked him back – Julian’s grip at the crook of his elbow.

“What? You don’t trust my decisions anymore? Think it’s the jet or the psycho talking?” Julian’s large hand crumpled at the front of Gage’s shirt, anchoring him. “You want to run NukaWorld now? Keep me nice and sedated so you can call the shots?”

For fucks sake.

Gage’s arms surged up to shove Julian off of him, breaking his grasp. The red head’s surprise at the action had him staggering backwards a few steps, shock flitting across his face only to be trampled down by anger once more. In the way it screwed up his face though, there was something else that lingered. Deceit, maybe. Gage could taste it on the tip of his tongue, and it garnished the venom in his voice.

“You said all that – not me – _you_. I thought you might be shooting up or somethin’, yeah, I’ll own up to that – but it wasn’t because I was tryin’ to oust ya. It was because-“ Gage broke off, the words that had been ready like bullets in the chamber of a gun had now expanded. They strained against his throat, beating against the inside like they had to fight to get out though it was that very struggle that kept them lodged in his throat. 

This was usually when talking got hard for him.

He took a deep breath, his temper rising at the momentum he was losing as he did so. When he tried to swallow the lump in his throat, he could feel it bob and twitch, like the live dinner of a large snake that had been swallowed whole. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse.

“I never believed you weren’t shit, that was all you.”

Julian’s spiteful expression faltered for an instance so brief, Gage could scarcely believe he saw it at all. When he garnered control once more though, his stare was flatter and colder than the other man had ever seen it on him.

“You never _said_ I ‘wasn’t shit’.”

His voice was low, as if it couldn’t be raised to a normal register without flaring outwards and engulfing the sorry pair in fire. Gage only had a few moments to wonder at this before Julian turned on his heel again, and strode off in the opposite direction of the Safari Zone - back towards NukaTown U.S.A. 

Gage knew better than to follow this time.

-

By the time Gage had dragged himself back to the Fizztop Grille, night had fallen hard on NukaWorld. The moon was nowhere in sight, and Gage found this fitting. It was preferable to have the light extinguished after the day he’d had – lest it illuminate the full distress of the situation.

There was no way to fix this without confronting it though. Gage had only returned home, tail between his legs to grovel – something he’d always said he’d never do again. Fuck the gangs and their suspicions, fuck William and the distrust he put in Gage’s head. Tonight, Gage would beg for Julian’s forgiveness (this time, it really would be the last time) and by tomorrow, things would be back to normal.

Gage’s spirits lifted with each repentant step he took up the stairs. He’d be sorry – really sorry, and maybe he wouldn’t even have to sleep alone tonight. 

Again, Gage’s hand hesitated before the double doors. It wasn’t fear that kept him though, a part of him, anxious as he was to reconcile, wanted to linger in this moment. This tenuous, fluttered feeling of being accountable to someone other than himself. He only had to be sorry because he had someone to be sorry to. Returning – pitiful as he felt – meant he had somewhere to return to. For the first time in his life, Gage was optimistic, and he let it bloom in his chest like the most invasive of garden species’.

He pushed the doors open.

“Hey, boss – Julian. Listen, I’m so-“

Julian whirled around, eyes wide, the violence of his shocked reaction knocking some of what he’d had on the coffee table, over the edge. He wasn’t at his usual brooding place at the bar, instead, he was crouched in the meager den area. Though he was hunched over the coffee table from his perched position on the lip of the couch cushion, his body was turned enough that Gage could see what his hands were doing from where he stood. 

The tip of the needle was buried into a spot in Julian’s forearm. Gage could imagine the bluish vein wrapping around the lean muscle of Julian’s forearm. It made him feel dirty, the way the needle could so easily access the sacred place his fingers once traced. 

The chamber of the needle wasn’t empty yet, and as Julian’s rigid fingers froze like talons around it, between them, Gage could make out the violet luminescence trademark of Med-X. Julian, taut as he braced himself for Gage’s reaction, looked like he’d died and been reanimated. His limbs were still somewhat sleepy, his gaze glazed and hollow despite the ardor with which they stood at attention.

Gage’s lips spread wide to reveal his teeth. He had half a mind to laugh, though no real urge to. The result was his teeth bared, face contorted, as a thin stream of air hissed out.

“Well shit, whaddya know?”

Julian ripped the needle from his arm and let it drop off to the floor. Red creeped up at his throat and cheeks, curling around the tips of his ears. His face wore an expression of outrage, though he had the sense to keep his mouth shut, if he had anything waiting inside at all.

“When I’m wrong, I’m really, _really_ fucking wrong,” Gage continued. “Here I was, willing William to be wrong. _Aching_ for the other gangs to just be pissy and spiteful. I wanted them to be so wrong that I was willing to abandon every instinct I had, just to make sure you stayed picture perfect in my mind.” 

Gage’s voice was rising, and so was the tightness in his throat. This is when talking got hard – but _fuck_ , everything else was so much harder.

“My instincts never betrayed me though – _you_ did.” His throat threatened to close and his voice scraped along the sides, forcing it to stay wide enough for him to say his piece. He felt raw. He was still aching, but it was an empty one. One sapped of its hope, and bittered with the pill he’d swallowed only for it to have nothing to offer him but its acrid taste.

“I vouched for you. I swore up and down, to hell and back that you were sober and fine. You told me you were – you fucking made me feel like _I_ was the one betraying _you_. You drove me from my home today because I accused you of doing what you holed up in here to do,“ Gage jabbed a finger viciously in Julian’s direction.

“ _Vouched_ for me?” Julian rounded on Gage now, eyes flashing in wicked emerald. “Is that what you call that? Seems more like you were just sitting behind me, waiting for me to screw up so you could throw it in my face!”

“ _I was trying to help you_ ,” Gage spat.

“Trying to watch your own ass, more like.” Julian took on a mocking tone. “ _Poor_ Gage stuck with his _chemwhore_ boyfriend who’s plunging NukaWorld into ruin – but not before ensuring that everyone will have so many caps they’ll be _buried in the fucking things_.”

Gage didn’t respond right away. Thick arms wrapped tight around his chest, he appraised Julian in a tight silence, which the other matched.

“Is that what you really think?” He finally asked, “That I launched this whole witch hunt because I _wanted_ to?”

“Didn’t you?” Where Julian’s face did not falter this time, his voice did.

“I wanted nothing more than for this to be more Colter bullshit,” Gage swallowed. “And if it was true, I wanted you to feel like you…weren’t alone.”

“I am though, aren’t I? It doesn’t matter that you’re standing in the room with me, or beside me or even if you meant what you said back at the Ferris wheel – the truth is I’m the one who can’t seem to kick this shit.”

Gage’s face darkened at this. Dammit, Julian swore he’d never speak of it again. He was right though; the sentiment hadn’t changed. What Gage had said to him that night, only a week ago though it felt somehow much more distant, still held true. Their own little starlit vow, consecrated in a place where a man’s word wasn’t worth the pot he pissed in.

“Well, fuck.” Gage sighed, running a calloused hand tiredly over his face. “You’re wrong because we really are in this shit together. You have your addiction, and I-“ _have mine,_ is what he was going to say, though he couldn’t. The hand that ran down his face rubbed tersely at the back of his neck and Gage looked away.“- I’m not going to let you waste away in a pile of empty syringes in a mess of your own shit.”

“Yeah?”

Julian’s voice lifted at the end – the most hopeful Gage had heard him all day. His stomach pitted when he realized it was also the least sober.

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Gage snapped.

Julian had nothing to quip back, instead he’d fallen peculiarly silent. 

“Yeah, you did.” Then, “I’ll do better,” he said quietly.

-

The same circle of glowers surrounded Gage in the same, dour looking room. Against the far windowsill, William shifted his weight against it, and a cloud of dust erupted behind him. 

He didn’t seem so ominously all-knowing anymore, though his fingers still turned his switchblade between themselves, an intricate dance of danger. Now he just looked like a guy with a knife. Admittedly, a guy with a knife could still be a problem, but Gage supposed that’s why they were all here today anyways – guys with could-be problems.

“So? What’s the story with our fearless leader?”

It was Mags that was pushing now, though Gage knew he probably shouldn’t be surprised. She and William shared everything – undoubtedly, they’d be the same pain in his ass.

“No story here. I dug around – he’s fit as a fiddle.”

Gage hoped they wouldn’t notice the twitch at the corner of his mouth. 

Julian was as fit as a fiddle; if fiddles made a habit of slouching near the toilet, shaking with the chills and sweating with the nauseum of withdrawal.

Fit as a fiddle indeed.

“Bullshit Gage. Give it to us straight – we’re not going to pass on any other slip ups on your part any longer,” Nisha hissed. 

“You won’t have to,” Gage lifted his chin to meet her glare. He hoped he looked tough through her mask. “Boss is fine, and you all will be too, so long as you quit sniffing around his closet for skeletons.”

The circle was quiet as they thought. Gage didn’t know how many times he could spit out the same lie without it tiring out, and he wasn’t keen on trying to see for himself.

“If there’s nothin’ else, ‘Boss and I’ve got parks to run.”

Gage turned on his heel – slowing as he did so because everything was running at warped speed now, and he knew if he didn’t slow down, he’d spiral. A bead of sweat slid down his temple as he focused on making his stride as natural as possible. 

It was harder than he thought, and then Gage had to extend his efforts to make sure this didn’t show through either when all he wanted was to bolt back to Julian. Puke and chems and fuckin’ relapses and all – Gage knew they’d come, because if there was anything he was sure of, it was that healing was messy, and people were messy, and Christ, his person was messier than most.

His back prickled with the exacerbated sweat that rubbed between his shirt and skin, and the daggered stares of the gang leaders on his back. Thinking about what he was returning home to tired him out already, imprinting on the inside of his skull like the voice from that once record Julian would sometimes play on good days; _I’ve got it bad, and that ain’t good._

Gage wondered which days were the sober days and then went to find out.


End file.
